


No One There (But You)

by Just_Another_Day



Category: Captive Prince - C. S. Pacat
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Ambiguous Content, Angst, Drama, Gen, How Do I Tag This Without Spoiling It, M/M, POV Laurent (Captive Prince), canon-typical warnings apply
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-07-24
Updated: 2018-07-24
Packaged: 2019-06-15 10:28:56
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,501
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15410943
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Just_Another_Day/pseuds/Just_Another_Day
Summary: Auguste had always been by Laurent's side supporting him when he was growing up. He definitely had. Laurent didn't care what anyone else had to say about it.





	No One There (But You)

**Author's Note:**

> So last night I played a fun game: 'write anything at all except miles of distance, even though that fic still has another 60K words or so that aren't yet on the page'. Someone stop me from working on twenty different fics at once, seriously. It can't be healthy. At least this one isn't a WIP. 
> 
> Heads up that there are specific things that I might warn for if they didn't form the core of the fic (and if they were easy to explain in just a few words). The end notes might give you an indication of what those things are if you're concerned, so feel free to scroll down there for some spoilers before you read if you like. Also, be aware that a lot of stuff is purposely left unexplained or open to interpretation in this fic.

Laurent's first memory was of Auguste. 

That was no real surprise to him, considering that Auguste was the one person who was _always_ there, but apparently no one else thought it should be the case. Mother had sighed in that frustrated way that Laurent had recently grown used to hearing when her question of whether he remembered going to Ravenel when he was four had resulted in Laurent reminiscing aloud about riding in the back of the southbound carriage, staring out the window at the rolling hills passing by as Auguste told him stories. Laurent still remembered the one about the dragon that Auguste claimed lived on the top of Ravenel's parapets, which only came out at night and hid from everyone except curious little boys who were willing to stay up past their bedtime to go hunting for it. Laurent had been so incredibly dejected when they'd left Ravenel weeks later without him ever managing to see the dragon that Auguste had apologised for ever bringing it up in the first place. But Laurent liked hearing Auguste's stories, so he insisted that Auguste didn't feel guilty, and that he shouldn't stop telling them.

But before Laurent could get even halfway through retelling that memory, Mother had snapped, disapproving, "Really, Laurent? We've talked about this. It's long past time that you stop making things up and accept reality." 

Laurent set his jaw stubbornly and refused to even look at her for the rest of the day.

Laurent's words hadn't always earned such disapproval. At first, it had been sadness, of all things. Unlike the trip to Ravenel, Laurent himself didn't remember this, but he'd been told that when he was young and first learned the word 'brother' and its meaning, he'd toddled around babbling to everyone who would listen (and some who wouldn't) about his beloved brother. He'd been so insistent that Mother, looking sad, had sat him down and told him, "I'm sorry, Laurent. We can't give you a little brother. It's too dangerous for me to have more children."

Apparently little Laurent's response hadn't been intelligible, but Laurent retrospectively imagined that it had to have been some childish version of comforting his mother, trying to tell her that it didn't matter that she couldn't give him a younger brother when he already had a perfectly good older one.

That gloomy reaction had given way eventually to confusion.

When Laurent was six, he had been telling Mother about his first proper riding lesson, which had been held that morning, and how Auguste had for the first few laps paced alongside Laurent's pony, as if to make sure that Laurent couldn't fall off without Auguste being there to catch him. He'd only stopped when Laurent, laughing, had broken away from the riding instructor and made his pony speed up enough that Auguste couldn't seem to keep up anymore despite the length of his legs being comparable to those of the short pony. Laurent had decided the pony must have been particularly fast for its size, but that hadn't stopped him from making a point of teasing Auguste about being too slow.

"Who's this fellow you keep mentioning?" Mother had asked when Laurent concluded his story. "You talk about him all the time, but I've never seen you playing with any of the courtiers' children either; you're always too busy with your books to make friends. Is he a servant?"

Laurent had scowled and said, "That's not funny, Mother. You'll hurt his feelings if you keep acting like you don't care about him all the time."

Auguste, standing behind Mother, shrugged as if he didn't care. Mother didn't even glance in his direction, which only made Laurent more upset. How dare she just ignore him like that all the time? Laurent didn't know how anyone could ignore golden, perfect Auguste, let alone their own mother.

"I don't know what you're talking about, darling." It wasn't said unkindly. That might even have made it worse.

"I'm sick of it," Laurent cried. "It's not fair that everyone keeps just passing him over and pretending he doesn't matter, just because I'm supposed to be the more important one just because I'm going to be King one day. I don't even know why I'm the Crown Prince."

"Your father has explained the lines of succession to you, hasn't he? You're the Crown Prince because you're the King's son."

"But so is Auguste! And he's older too, so shouldn't he come first? Instead, everyone acts like he doesn't matter, and like I should treat him the same way. But I don't care what you all think. I won't abandon my brother like that."

Frowning, Mother had said, "Laurent, what wild stories are you making up this time? You know you don't have a brother."

Auguste looked so sad, but he didn't contradict her. Well what would be the point, Laurent thought, when she clearly never cared what Auguste had to say, not even enough to acknowledge that he'd spoken at all. No one did, except Laurent. So Laurent would just have to _make_ them care. And if that still wasn't enough, then Laurent would make sure that he was enough for Auguste.

After that, Laurent had – tenaciously, so that they couldn't just ignore him – sung Auguste's praises wherever anyone could hear. For the longest time, everyone's reactions when Auguste's name came up had turned to indulgent amusement. It wasn't unusual, they said, for boys who were Laurent's age – especially those with vivid imaginations like his – to make up imaginary friends for themselves and become annoyed whenever people didn't play along. Their patronising smiles annoyed Laurent even more. He wasn't making this up. Why did they all keep acting like he was? They were the ones who were pretending.

But when Laurent said as much to Auguste, Auguste looked melancholic.

"I'm really sorry," he said. 

Laurent frowned. Auguste wasn't the one who should be sorry. It was everyone else who was being horrible, not him. It struck a strange chord in Laurent that Auguste would apologise despite that.

"I did try to make sure you knew the truth when you were younger, but you weren't old enough then to be able to understand that someone you could see plain as day, just like you can see anyone else, wasn't actually there the same way everyone else was. It was easier to go along with it when you treated me like I was just another person." Auguste paused, seemingly to gulp in a breath. "It'd been so long since anyone even looked directly at me, let alone _spoke_ to me. I was too weak to risk giving that up if you decided it wasn't worth your time to pay attention to someone no one else was aware of. And then you started calling me your _brother_ , and I... I'm sorry. I just wanted it so badly."

The dread that had been growing in Laurent's chest since Auguste's first 'sorry' solidified into a feeling of sick concession.

"What are you?" Laurent breathed. "Are you really something I just made up? Am I going mad?" That was certainly what Uncle had claimed when he'd told Father that Laurent needed help rather than to be ignored until he outgrew it, though he'd said it with such a patent look of concern on his face that Laurent couldn't bring himself to be as angry at Uncle as at everyone else who hadn't believed him.

"I'm real," Auguste insisted. "Or, at least, I think I am. I _was_ , a long time ago."

"But you're not really my brother?" Laurent asked, his voice soft. His chest hurt. 

"I am," Auguste reassured him. "Oh Laurent, in every way that matters, I am. I've cared for you since you came into this world squalling loudly enough to make the physician have to cover his ears and made me laugh for the first time in ages. And then you clearly _saw_ me as you grew – your eyes always found me when you were a baby, even in a room full of people – and I knew then how important you were going to be to me. I love you like a brother. And I'll always be here for you, just like a big brother should be." He paused for a long moment, then confessed, "I did have a younger brother, you know, back when I was alive. Watching you grow feels the same as it did with him."

Tears rolled down Laurent's face and Auguste reached for him reflexively, as if wanting to hug him, before stopping his hand just short of contact. It wasn't the first time Laurent had seen him catch himself like that.

Laurent, in a quick burst of movement, swiped his hand out, testing, before Auguste could move backwards out of his range. As he'd suspected, his fingers met nothing but air, despite what his eyes were telling him should be there.

"I thought you just didn't like touching people," Laurent said. "I thought it had something to do with how everyone always ignored you, and I didn't want to ask in case it hurt you to talk about it. But you're not really there, are you?"

"I'm here," insisted Auguste. "I'm always here for you. Just in a different way to the other people you see every day."

Laurent had taken two whole days to mull that over, alternating between anger and crying and numbness. Everyone around him looked concerned at his fluctuating emotions, and they either kept asking him uncomfortable questions to which he could offer no answer or just gave him a wide berth and hoped he'd sort it out by himself. Eventually, Laurent once more acknowledged Auguste, who had been trailing silently behind him like a shadow while Laurent had done his best to come to terms with his brother being something far different than what Laurent had believed.

"It is different, like you said. You're not here the same way everyone else is," Laurent said. When Auguste flinched, Laurent was quick to add, "You're _better_. No one else sees me as anything except the Crown Prince. They only talk to me because it might benefit them one day, not because they care what I have to say, or care about me in general. I'd rather hang out with you than them any day. If no one else can see you, that means I have you all to myself. And if you can't really touch anything, I'll just have to be the one turning the pages on all the books, won't I."

And speaking of books, Laurent was quick to use the information Auguste provided about his life before – which Laurent refused to think of as his 'real' life – to start scouring the history records. Eventually, Laurent found him in one of the more obscure books. He'd never held the rank of 'prince' like Laurent, but he'd nonetheless been a brave warrior who all the other soldiers had looked up to almost like royalty. The book went on to refer to him as 'the starburst' more often than by his actual name, and Laurent could see why; Auguste was a shining light, almost blinding in its intensity, and that would have been no less true back then. According to the written account, Auguste had commanded Vere's forces in a battle against Akielos several centuries ago. He'd held the lines when they should have shattered, and rallied the men when all seemed lost. If he'd been Akielon, they'd have written a five-hour-long ballad telling of his exploits, Laurent thought. As he was Veretian, there was just this one book, and probably a tapestry depicting his image in the middle of the fight buried somewhere among the vast array of hallways where such things hung in Arles. Laurent did go looking for a woven image of Auguste's last stand, but never found one. Perhaps it had fallen into disrepair with age and had been taken down or discarded entirely.

When Laurent showed the book to his parents to explain who Auguste was, Father hadn't seemed impressed. "So you made him up based on someone you'd read about one day and then forgot that it was just a story in the first place. Just another reason why you should be spending more time with a sword in your hands rather than a book."

Father had never found Laurent's 'imaginary friend' to be amusing or adorable the way others had. He just thought Laurent was being childish. And the older Laurent grew, with no signs of giving up the idea that he had a brother named Auguste who was always there with him, no matter whether anyone else was aware of him, the more other people started to agree with Father's disparaging opinion of the whole thing. For every person who claimed Laurent was making up lies or who tried to convince Laurent that he was just imagining things, Laurent clung even harder to the knowledge that Auguste was _right there_. Even if no one else would admit it was true, it didn't matter. Auguste was real.

By the time Laurent was thirteen, it was no longer considered to be 'childish stubbornness' when Laurent talked into what everyone else assumed was empty space, or spoke of a man who didn't exist as if he was right there all the time. People were careful not to say it where either of Laurent's parents could hear, but Laurent was good at picking up on the whispers of the court, so he knew that he'd gained a reputation as 'the Mad Prince'. There was, later that year, talk that the future of Vere might not be as secure as everyone had assumed up until then, with the Crown Prince apparently being mentally unstable, and the until-then tiny prospect that the King might yet still manage a spare heir, despite the physician's warnings, passed along with Queen Hennike.

It was the last thing Laurent wanted to be listening to while he struggled to mourn his mother's death, but it seemed he didn't really have a choice, for the tongues in Arles never stopped moving.

At least, Laurent consoled himself, if there was one good thing about Auguste not really being alive anymore, it was that Laurent would never need to deal with him dying and leaving him behind, as Mother had.

Laurent tried not to care what people said about him during that time. Auguste was enough for him, Laurent thought. He didn't need anyone else to like him, and respect could be cultivated as he grew closer to adulthood. Auguste would support Laurent as he figured out a way to make them stop doubting his fitness to rule long before he was old enough to inherit the throne. It would all work out eventually. After all, didn't people keep telling Laurent since Mother had died that time healed all wounds?

But time was apparently something the people of Vere were short on lately, and it ran out entirely when King Theomedes of Akielos, seeing an opportunity forged by the breaking of Vere's alliance with Kempt, invaded.

The ride to Marlas was long, but at least Auguste kept Laurent company throughout, propped behind Laurent in the saddle. Laurent had long since given up figuring out the logistics of how Auguste could do things like ride along on a horse while, at the same time, Laurent couldn't feel where he should have been pressed up against Laurent's back. However it was possible, the horse would probably have been glad that its second rider added no extra weight.

Tents were set up in the fields of Delfeur, even for the King and his son, despite the fact that all of the books Laurent had read about previous battles had usually involved Vere utilising the might of their fortresses to hold back encroachers rather than meeting them out on the open fields. Auguste noted it was strange as well, but Father wouldn't listen when Laurent questioned it. Laurent was still too young to really understand war strategies, Father had said, and Father had far more experienced advisors than Laurent whom he was relying on. Laurent had gritted his teeth at the dismissal, but he hadn't bothered complaining to anyone but Auguste.

When the initial so-called attempts to negotiate with Akielos had fallen through, Laurent was pushed out onto the rear-most lines of the army, where it was thought that he would see no real action but could still get a feel for how a battle was led, with a mind towards the fact that one day Laurent would be expected to head the army himself. For most of the time, Laurent was as useless to the war effort as Auguste, who couldn't even wield a sword anymore. Laurent didn't experience any aspect of battle during that period except hearing the distant sound of clashing swords and guttural screaming.

But then something had gone wrong, and the lines broke. Auguste had called out a desperate warning to Laurent as everything was plunged into chaos and Laurent ended up having to put his until-then-mostly-ceremonial sword to real use. The rabbit-fast patter of his own heartbeat echoed in Laurent's ears, blocking out everything but the jolt of his sword against his enemies'. The world faded into a blur around him. All that mattered was the next opponent, and staying alive. 

By the time the Akielons were called to pull back, for the battle was already more or less won and the rest could be settled on paper rather than at swords' length, it had been maybe an hour since Laurent had last spared any attention for Auguste, for he was neither in danger as Laurent was, nor able to really help get Laurent himself out of danger.

When the fighting stopped, though, Laurent expected to look around to find Auguste watching him with relief in his eyes that Laurent had managed to make it through unscathed. But Auguste was nowhere to be seen, even after Laurent specifically started looking for him, picking his way through a field of bodies in hopes of finding the one dead man who was still moving. Eventually, Laurent was forced to delay the search, for the soldiers who recognised him practically dragged him away to the 'safety' of the King's tent. Laurent was surprised that the King himself wasn't there. One of his father's advisors had to explain exactly why that was. 

"Your Uncle would have liked to be here to tell you instead," Councillor Herode said, "but he has duties elsewhere at the moment."

With news of the King's death, and no one to step in and lead the people in his absence except Laurent's uncle, who preferred battling with words over leading a battle charge, Delfeur was officially ceded to Akielos almost as a matter of course. Although he was supposedly acting on Laurent's behalf as the Crown Prince's Regent, Uncle had signed the papers before Laurent even knew that a meeting had been organised. 

Laurent didn't even bother to get angry about that at the time, though he would be later when there was time for it. Right then, Laurent was instead too busy panicking as the men started packing up their tents with the intention of pulling out of the region.

"We can't leave," he told Uncle. "Not yet."

"I know you don't want to give up our land, but it's too late. It's done. There wasn't any way around it after your father fell and the lines fell apart. So we can't remain here now unless we want Akielos to take it as a breach of the treaty and slay us all where we stand."

Laurent hadn't been talking about his reticence to yield Delfeur, though. He was hesitating to leave because it had been three days by then since Laurent had last seen Auguste. Laurent had to find him and make sure he returned to Arles with them. He needed more time.

Laurent refused, at first, to think too much on the possibility that Auguste might not just be somehow lost out there in the wreckage of the battlefield, but might have simply disappeared entirely. Laurent had never really come to any conclusions about how this whole thing worked, after all. Auguste himself hadn't been able to tell him, and there was no mention of anything like Laurent's ability to see a centuries-dead soldier in Laurent's books to let Laurent figure it out himself, either.

Laurent delayed as long as he possibly could, to no avail.

Father came back to Arles in a wooden casket. Auguste didn't come back at all. 

Laurent didn't see the point in trying to explain to everyone that his tears were far more for the man who had only really been his brother emotionally, and who hadn't even been alive since long before Laurent had known him, than for his actual blood-related father, who'd just now died. 

Arles was a cold, dark place without Auguste's light by Laurent's side. And Laurent quickly learned how little he'd known, when his parents were there as a deterrent and Auguste was there as support, of the true nature of the snake pit.

"You don't need a pretend brother, anyway," Uncle had reassured him when Laurent, in a moment of weakness, had explained his feelings. " _I'm_ here for you."

Laurent was quick to stop crying Auguste's name in the worst moments. He didn't want to taint his memories of him, after all.

The rumours that Laurent was already the better part of the way down the path to insanity died down a little without him constantly talking to someone invisible to everyone else's eyes, but the doubtful looks never entirely stopped being levelled at him with certain people there to fan the flames when it suited them. And other rumours sprung up as well, equally damaging in their own ways. Laurent had to weather it all on his own for a very long time, until the day when one important rumour that actually didn't revolve directly around Laurent, but would greatly affect him all the same, mistakenly reached Laurent's ears.

Laurent had no particular love for Akielos. They had murdered Auguste hundreds of years ago, and they had killed his father more recently. They had taken advantage of Vere's vulnerabilities, and they'd more or less stolen Veretian land and the people living on it.

But just because Laurent didn't like Akielos didn't mean that Laurent wanted Uncle to have that whole place under his thumb either. Laurent didn't have the means to oppose the entire Akielon army if Uncle ultimately had control of them via some bastard puppet King. Laurent would much rather have some way to influence that army himself instead.

An alliance was struck just days before the King of Akielos succumbed to sickness. Civil wars raged briefly and then were put down as the Crown Princes of two nations fought back to back against their respective usurpers. And Laurent found himself in possession of something much better than the temporary support of a foreign army that he'd initially set out to secure for himself.

Laurent might have been the one who'd purposely reached out to him with news of the plot against him and his father, but despite that, Laurent realised that somehow he still hadn't really seen Damianos of Akielos coming. Laurent wasn't sure how he could have been expected to, for Damen didn't really fit the mould of all the stories exchanged in Vere about the Crown Prince of Akielos, the most arrogant swordsman in several kingdoms, who bedded anyone in sight, and who knew nothing of honour. Damen certainly wasn't perfect, but he was so much more than the way the Veretian court, and Laurent by extension, had viewed him.

He was, Laurent had come to realise with a painful clenching sensation around his heart, very like Auguste had been.

It took Laurent many months before he told Damen that, and explained who Auguste was. He even told Damen how people had seen Laurent as insane because of it, despite knowing that Damen himself might privately think the same. Then Laurent waited, braced for the worst, for Damen to react to Laurent's story of seeing someone no one else could. Damen would be nicer about it than most, Laurent was sure, but it would still hurt when Damen inevitably didn't believe Laurent's account. It wasn't like Laurent would really blame him though. He wouldn't have believed it either without the evidence of his own eyes.

Damen surprised him though, just as he always seemed to do.

"In Akielos, we believe that the dead sometimes linger if there's something keeping them here on this plain. Most people can't see them, but every so often there's someone who's sensitive to their presence, or can even see them with their own eyes the same as if they were anyone living."

Smiling, Damen added, "I don't think you're mad. I just think you're special. And it's not like that's news to me at all."

Laurent finally felt able to properly cry for Auguste's loss, then, for the first time since he was thirteen. This time the arms that comforted him were Damen's, and Laurent felt safer than he had since he'd last had Auguste by his side, or perhaps even as much as he'd felt in his entire life, to be honest.

"Why did he leave me?" Laurent asked, his voice small. "I needed him more than ever after that, and he wasn't there."

"I don't know," Damen said. "Maybe whatever thread was holding him here broke. His last remaining descendent might have died in the battle, or some item like a weapon or armour that he'd been tied to could have been broken, or just taken out of your reach. Or maybe," Damen added thoughtfully, "it takes a certain innocence to detect spirits, and seeing all that death changed you too much."

Or perhaps Laurent had been imagining it all along, and the battle had merely forced him to grow out of it fast. But if Damen thought that, he was good enough not to say so.

"So he might still have been here after Marlas," Laurent considered, "and he might be with me even now, but I just can't see him anymore."

"Even if he isn't, then I'm sure he'd have wished he could have been."

That thought wasn't comforting as much as it was heartbreaking to Laurent. But that was somehow still alright, because Damen was right there to help Laurent gather the pieces of his heart and put it back together anew. It was slightly different than before, with cracks newly welded together where once there had been no sign of damage, but Laurent didn't think that made it any less strong, and he knew Damen would agree.

But strong or not, Laurent still didn't want to go through a pain like that again.

He said, "Don't ever leave me like that."

Damen joined their hands. "Never."

**Author's Note:**

> I seriously don't know how to tag this, guys. It's meant to be open to interpretation whether Auguste was a ghost or some figment of Laurent's imagination or something else altogether, so what tag would I even pick? And using tags for any of that would kind of give away the plot anyway. Also, does it deserve a character death tag when Auguste was either dead all along or didn't exist at all or might not have even really 'disappeared' in the end? So confusing. Oh well. Tagging is always a bit of a crapshoot anyway.
> 
> Also, if anyone's interested, my resistance has finally broken down, so I guess I have a [tumblr](https://justanotherdaylikeanyother.tumblr.com/) now. If you want to come ask me anything or request for me to write something, you are very welcome.


End file.
